// ARS TECHNICA — MOBILE & WEB
Trump wanted to give No Kings no air. Then, Meta suspended its Instagram.
Meta faces pressure to protect No Kings Instagram on election day.
Over the weekend, the No Kings Coalition said Meta declined to commit to taking steps to prevent automated systems from suspending one of Instagram’s most prominent pro-democracy accounts if activity surged around the page during the midterm elections.
A demand for action came after Meta apologized for temporarily suspending the No Kings Instagram account and disabling access for four hours at the peak of an early voting push from the group. In a post on X, Meta’s Andy Stone said the account had been using a Claude AI tool in a way that made it appear to be a bot. But even though automated review detected the error within an hour, Stone acknowledged that additional hurdles kept admins locked out. State and federal lawmakers—as well as a coalition of 14 attorneys general—have asked Meta to further explain its actions.
In a letter to No Kings, Meta offered to arrange a meeting with a technical expert who could better explain the mistake. But No Kings rejected the response, saying it failed to address any of the group’s ongoing concerns and requesting a meeting with Meta senior leadership instead. The group stressed that the issue goes beyond its Instagram account, saying that Americans who rely on Meta’s platforms need assurance that voting content won’t be suppressed ahead of or on election day. Among eight questions, the coalition asked Meta to publicly disclose any communications with the Trump administration about the No Kings account or the historic early voting day event.
On October 30, Meta executives met with No Kings. According to the coalition’s account of the meeting, Meta said it has “no plans” to change policies that lead to harmful over-enforcement, a problem that even the independent Oversight Board, which reviews Meta’s content decisions, worries could result in suppression or censorship of No Kings and other pro-democracy content during this critical period.
“Meta acknowledged that it made a mistake, but an apology without action does nothing to ensure that this kind of censorship won’t happen again,” No Kings said, calling Meta’s laissez-faire attitude “unacceptable.”
Ars has found no evidence that the Trump administration asked Meta to restrict the No Kings account or that anyone at Meta intentionally targeted the account for political reasons. Meta told No Kings that it planned to post a public reply to the coalition’s demands, but the company did not respond to Ars’ request for comment, and Stone has yet to post an update on X. His account did, however, apologize for another accidental enforcement action impacting a Republican-controlled account the day before the No Kings meeting. “We automatically removed the @MOSenateGOP Facebook account because our systems mistakenly assessed the account was impersonating another one,” Stone said.
“This was never simply about a technical glitch or one Instagram account,” No Kings’ press release said. “It’s about whether millions of Americans can rely on these platforms to organize, communicate, and access critical voting information without disruption.”
Formed in 2025 after Donald Trump returned to office for a second term, the No Kings Coalition is best known for organizing some of the largest coordinated protests in recent US history. Using social media channels to coordinate nationwide demonstrations against Trump policies viewed as anti-democratic, organizers estimated that more than 5 million people participated in its first protests in June 2025 and say attendance has only increased since. No Kings estimates 7 million people attended the second protests in October 2025, and more than 8 million showed up for the third demonstration last March.
For the fourth event, however, No Kings sought to get more than 9 million people into the streets, and then directly to the polls, by organizing an early voting event on October 17. Unlike the family-friendly protests where Americans held up signs dema